Armory Stats - Player Raid Completion Rates
Today we are taking a look at the overall raid completion rate of players. Now that achievements are account wide, we can group characters by account and get an idea of what percentage of players (not characters) have completed a raid at least once, based on earning the achievement for the final wing.

The data used today is a sample from 6.3 million characters from 2.5 million accounts. The sample is slightly biased, as players who are not in a guild are much less likely to appear in our sample. You can leave suggestions for future stat posts in the comments!

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Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Raid FinderGC, lack of tanks has to be one of the main problems you guys need to work on - 45+ min LFR queue as DPS, is just not cool.
It seems to have gotten worse with 5.4. We're looking at the data to try to understand what's going on. (Source)If you want to know why there is less tanks. Please tank a lfr and you will have your answers.
If that was the only issue, it would likely be a gradual decline not a sudden drop at 5.4. That implies it's flex (or a bug). (Source)

then take a look at it before you say it doesnt guarantee everything.
There are guys in LFR doing 10K dps because they don't realize that e.g. you should use abilities as fast as you can. (Source)
In that environment, being able to do any kind of PG will help teach that player how WoW combat should really be played. (Source)And yet the enrage timers in SoO LFR are tuned as though this was not the case.
Hitting enrage timers in LFR is nearly always a lack of understanding the mechanics rather than just low DPS. (Source)
That's still on us to fix, but we'd rather not just dial down all the mechanics until you can just ignore them. (Source)My concern and experience is that SoO LFR seems to be tuned for a level of skill and gear that the mode no longer attracts.
The feedback was very similar for ToT LFR until players knew the fights better. (Source)

No PG experience can be a substitute for the 10 years of raiding that many of us have, but it can serve as an introduction. (Source)Did i get you wrong that it should be an additional prerequisite? Or would it either be ilevel or pgs?
Yeah, we would never require PGs for LFR. It would just be a way to demonstrate that you didn't need the ilevel. (Source)

Just heard the best description of LFR "If someone tells me to eat a pile of crap for $10 million, I'll eat the pile of crap"
I get that, but there are also heroic raiders who get bored once the loot stops rolling it. (Source)
So you can't just argue that every activity must be so fun that the rewards don't play into someone's desire to do it. (Source)

Please don't remove the ability to enter LFR purely on iLevel. Forcing PG medal would effectively shut off LFR for too many.
The idea I floated, and Olivia even referenced, was PG letting you enter with a lower ilevel because you know what you're doing. (Source)

what is the future for lfr now you have split its community in two with flex raiding. it seems from in game play lfr is done.
LFR is still more popular than flex. However we think flex will be more fun for many of our players so we don't mind some transition (Source)

Why is kick protection a thing? having people do nothing and be toxic intentionally is rather frustrating
It was originally to protect folks in 5-player content from e.g. being kicked so they couldn't roll on loot. (Source)
We are considering that kick rules might be too strict on 25-player LFR, where one toxic player can affect a bunch of others. (Source)

I dont understand why people get so hyped about LFD being unsocial. It isnt.Without it, only a few would see content
It's pretty unsocial but it still serves a valuable purpose. (Source)

Class Balance Discussionthere are dozens of fan sites for that. The entire point of having an official forum is to talk to the devs directly.
Just to be clear, that is not our goal for the official forums. (Source)question and run stats on the collected data. Allows massive and robust sample.
Agreed, but it has one massive downside, in that there is no back and forth discussion among players, which I really value. (Source)Regardless, the forums serve two purposes: people complaining to Blizzard; people trolling those people.
While that exists, I find that view a little cynical. There are good discussions with a lot of back and forth as well. (Source)
We learn a lot when there is back and forth between two sides, especially if we can ascertain why they feel a certain way. (Source)

I always see the same people trolling for nerfs and crusading against certain classes. Everyone Is OP except me
As a team, we're a lot more interested in fun than balance. It's just for some players they are tightly connected. (Source)
And of course fun is subjective, so one can't just play the "X isn't fun for me - change it" card. (Source)That there is too much content that requires balance and not enough content that encourages variety?
It's concern, but we're a lot better at making the "balance" content than we are the "variety" content. (Source)

Guild Wars 2 Sale
It looks like Guild Wars 2 is on sale today, but only until Sunday night at 11:59 PM PDT. This is the lowest sale price so far, so now is a decent time to pick up a copy if you wanted to give it a try. You can find regular GW2 news updates over at GW2Guru.

How about stats for different difficulties aswell? SoO isn't very relevant at the moment, but it would be fun to compare LFR ToT to normal mode and when 6.0 comes, compare LFR-Flex-Normal-heroic SoO.

Also, are the statistics US only as usual or do they include every region?

Just US and EU. Comparing the different difficulties is slightly harder since you can't use achievements anymore, but I am going to look into using the kill counts that you see at the bottom of armory profiles to do so. Not sure how accurate they are, as there are fun bugs like Paragon kills never showing up.

Originally Posted by Celista

Good lord, where did all of the raiders go? Would be interesting to see current sub numbers.

I shared some incomplete US numbers a week or so ago if that would be of interest. The DB has already added another 100k characters since then though, so keep that in mind when looking at them.

As far as where the raiders are, most can't complete Siege of Orgrimmar on Raid Finder yet, as the last wing isn't open. The last wing just opened on flex this week, so most flex raiders may not have done it yet. The previous raids have had months of time and cross realm groups going on for a while now, which is also part of why they are higher.

There's nothing wrong with the amount players who have completed each raid. The easier tiers will more completions than the later tiers. That's actually pretty consistent progression really. New players in the last few months that have raided have probably completed MSV or HoF, but may not have the gear level to do ToT quite yet.

If you'd have waited a week or two, the number of people who'd completed SoO mighta shot up, as it is, people who only raid LFR such as myself, won't figure in the stats at all as he's not released yet.

As far as where the raiders are, most can't complete Siege of Orgrimmar on Raid Finder yet, as the last wing isn't open. The last wing just opened on flex this week, so most flex raiders may not have done it yet. The previous raids have had months of time and cross realm groups going on for a while now, which is also part of why they are higher.

Just checking, by "completion" does it mean "killed at least 1 boss" or "killed every boss"?

If it's the latter, then I think there is little reason to be concerned at the moment. Mostly because LFR wont show up yet (Wing 4 unlocks on 22nd) and Flex has only been open for 1 week. Since this is where the bulk of the raid-base is now, I'm not shocked by that chart. If it still looks like that by Christmas, then we need new underwear (or at least show this to people that claim raiding is easier than ever), but right now? Nah.

However, since achievements are date-stamped, can you compare "completion" rates based on time since release? Such as, how many 100%'d ToT by 15th of April, since that would be more reflective of the SoO figures as a comparion.

Thanks for the graph and google doc realm stats. I remember Chaud talking about going to player comparison this a month or so ago on the last graph.

Originally Posted by Celista

Good lord, where did all of the raiders go? Would be interesting to see current sub numbers.

It is interesting. Was LFR really just an example of a new feature and the holding power of such or are there other things going on. Players can also skip ToT now and could not for vaults. Despite this Blizzard reduced some alternative content options and placed more importance on doing ToT for rep and long term engagement.

How are characters gathered and how does being in a guild tie into that?

My toons are guilded but in different bank guilds of mine. If I had shared achievements enabled, could you still connect them to the same account?
An easier or alternative way to connect characters to an account, are the shown battle pets. They are the same for every account and therefore for the character - regardless of the achievements.

Just checking, by "completion" does it mean "killed at least 1 boss" or "killed every boss"?

If it's the latter, then I think there is little reason to be concerned at the moment. Mostly because LFR wont show up yet (Wing 4 unlocks on 22nd) and Flex has only been open for 1 week. Since this is where the bulk of the raid-base is now, I'm not shocked by that chart. If it still looks like that by Christmas, then we need new underwear (or at least show this to people that claim raiding is easier than ever), but right now? Nah.

However, since achievements are date-stamped, can you compare "completion" rates based on time since release? Such as, how many 100%'d ToT by 15th of April, since that would be more reflective of the SoO figures as a comparion.

I guess it could have been clearer, but for this I just used the achievement that included the last boss, assuming that players are able to kill the ones that come before the last few.

I'll come back and update this chart again at some point in a few months to see how things have changed (if I remember!).

Yeah, I'll try and see what I can do about player completion dates. Character completion dates are much easier! Added the quick output for that below.

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Originally Posted by banur

How are characters gathered and how does being in a guild ties into that?

My toons are guilded but in different bank guilds of mine. If I had shared achievements enabled, could you still connect them to the same account?
An easier or alternative way to connect characters to an account, are the shown battle pets. They are the same for every account and therefore for the character - regardless of the achievements.

As long as shared achievements are on they will show up as belonging to the same player. I started with a sample of characters we used in Cataclysm, updated all of them, updated all of their guilds, went through auctions a few times to get more guilds. I would imagine this caught a significant number of players, but it will likely take another month or so to get an even better sample.

I don't use pets right now as only ~2% of characters have account wide achievements off, so they just aren't included in any samples.

You have to remember, that there is/was a bug with the paragons of the klaxxi credit on the armory. I have completed the siege of Orgrimmar raid, however the armor shows that I have not killed the Paragons of the Klaxxi even though I have multiple times.

GC, lack of tanks has to be one of the main problems you guys need to work on - 45+ min LFR queue as DPS, is just not cool.
It seems to have gotten worse with 5.4. We're looking at the data to try to understand what's going on. (Source)
If you want to know why there is less tanks. Please tank a lfr and you will have your answers.
If that was the only issue, it would likely be a gradual decline not a sudden drop at 5.4. That implies it's flex (or a bug). (Source)

ive stopped tanking lfrs cause i got fed up with all the bitching from retarded dps that go all out on everything and often before the tanks even have a proper chance to get agro wich cause the tarded dps to get all the agro and die and the moaning and bitching starts, i know plenty of tanks that tanks raids with their guilds without any problems but they also stopped tanking lfrs for the same reason as me.

why should us tanks queue up just to get constant abuse from retards? and the majority of the tards is from kazzak..

You have to remember, that there is/was a bug with the paragons of the klaxxi credit on the armory. I have completed the siege of Orgrimmar raid, however the armor shows that I have not killed the Paragons of the Klaxxi even though I have multiple times.

If it's going off of that, it's just bugged at the moment.

Very much this. I've killed the Paragons three times now, and Garrosh once, but due to the armory bug not listing the Klaxxi kills I've got under my belt, it's listing me at only about 83% completion of SoO.

Very much this. I've killed the Paragons three times now, and Garrosh once, but due to the armory bug not listing the Klaxxi kills I've got under my belt, it's listing me at only about 83% completion of SoO.

Good lord, where did all of the raiders go? Would be interesting to see current sub numbers.

i think its to due with soo not being completed in LFR yet, and its still a new raid, most guilds are probably still struggling on normal

Originally Posted by endus

A thread about how hard it is being a white dude is not really a reasonable topic.

Originally Posted by Gabriel

You are assuming Cybran actually reads the articles he links.
I suspect he is actually some Soviet algorithm gone rogue, transmitting from some forgotten bunker, responding to keywords by googling them and adding "+bad" to the search query, and then just copy/pasting anything it comes across.

If you want to know why there is less tanks. Please tank a lfr and you will have your answers.
If that was the only issue, it would likely be a gradual decline not a sudden drop at 5.4. That implies it's flex (or a bug)

Do we really need to call in Scooby Do to solve this mystery?

Tank numbers are down because A) People are fed up with tanking for random people who are jerks B) People who are geared, experienced and willing to tank (and heal) are doing Flex.